


Cadence of a Fall

by Rhaella



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-14
Updated: 2009-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaella/pseuds/Rhaella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna Milton dreams in Latin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cadence of a Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most insane thing I’ve ever written, but it is so very much their native language, I don’t even care. Half in English and half in Latin, highlight beneath for translations where applicable.

_Non fero lucem sed tamen cecidi._   


I bear no light but still I fell.

*

It’s Thursday morning, and Anna Milton is sitting in the back row of her Ancient Greek history class, scribbling down words in a language she doesn’t understand. _Non est Deus in caelo_ , she writes again and again, and _quis nunc ducet angelos contra hostem?_ She doesn’t even notice until the professor walks past her desk and asks why she isn’t in any of the Latin classes.

“I don’t speak Latin,” Anna protests, glancing down at her notebook for the first time. The sentences are scattered through the pages’ margins, around and between the day’s notes, a scrawl of thick black ink that stands out against her schoolwork like a profession of guilt.

Anna slams the book shut and nervously drops it into her bag.

The professor doesn’t seem to mind. She raises an eyebrow, smiles, and says, “It isn’t exactly a spoken language, you know.”  
  
There is no God in heaven; who now shall lead the angels against the enemy?

*  
 _  
Cecidi. Cecidi propter amorem, sed non propter amorem personae. Propter imaginem amoris et libertatem veritatemque amoris cecidi._

 _Deum amate, inquit. Deum unicum amate, quia alium favere maledicere est. Ne dubita voluntatem Domini, inquit, et non parui. Negavi. Hoc caelum non serviam._

I fell. I fell for love, but not for love of a person. For the idea of love and the freedom and reality of love did I fall. || Love God, they said. Love only God, because to favour another is to blaspheme. Doubt not the will of the Lord, they said, and I disobeyed. I said no. I shall not serve such a heaven.   


*

In eighth grade, Anna Milton signs herself up for a Latin class.

She hesitates at first, strangely uncomfortable with the language, as if simple words in a dead tongue can somehow rewrite everything she knows, exposing her to possibilities best left unexplored. She can’t quite explain it so she never really tries, and when her parents suggest it for the third time, she finally decides to humour them.

The language eludes her. She can only recall the words for a few days before they disappear, sinking into her subconscious, settling into that place where rest all things unremembered. Even when she can handle the vocabulary, her mind refuses to make sense of the syntax; the sentences are nothing more than a broken, senseless chain of words. _I’d do better to read the periodic table_ , Anna decides, throwing her dictionary against her bedroom wall.

It takes her three weeks to finally give up.

She never does study another language.

*  
 _  
Cum angeli sanguis fluunt quatitur humus, sed terrae hominis non nos egent ut se deleant._

 _2000 annos observabam, tacitum et inops. Nunc non tacita sed sine lingua sum, non inops sed sine potentia. Permutatio operae pretium est.  
_

When angels bleed, the earth shakes, but the countries of man do not need us to destroy themselves. || For 2000 years, I watched, silent and helpless. Now I am not silent but without language, not helpless but without power. The exchange is well worth it.

*

The first book Anna Milton ever touches is the Bible.

Her father – and she has finally started to refer to him as such – pulls her into his lap and holds the Holy Book open in front of her. “In the beginning,” he begins, and Anna is almost too fascinated by the aged and yellow pages to hear the words. He reads straight through, night after night, chapter after chapter, until at last they reach Revelation and Anna listens to the story in a cold and horrified silence.

“Now war arose in heaven,” Rich Milton says, “Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.” And he pauses there in his reading, because his daughter has gone deathly still, but when he asks her what is wrong, she simply stares ahead, speechless.

“Michael,” she finally whispers beneath her breath, twisting her hands in her lap. “I don’t think he likes me anymore.”

“The Archangel?” her mother interjects from the other room. “But he’s the champion of humanity, honey. Of course he likes you.”

Anna nods reluctantly, though she intuitively guesses that even Michael is more righteous than merciful, more vengeful than empathetic. Her father sets the Bible aside and lifts her up, setting her down on the couch beside him. “You don’t need to worry about that, Anna,” he tries to reassure her. “The Lord’s angels are watching over all of us.”

“Not me,” Anna insists, unable to explain why the possibility that they might is even worse.

*

 _Si haberem angelum praesidem, id tu esses, O Castiel._

 _Carissimum mihi eras. Carius quam ceteros angelos quam Deum ipsum. Unicum in caelo quod desideram sed iam pridem te etiam amisi. O Castiel quam fidelissimum, me secutum esses in inferos ipsos sed non in libertatem._

 _Me hortatum es ne caderem. Me oravisti, et scio te numquam mihi proditionem ignotum esse._

 _Si haberem angelum praesidem, id esses tu, sed nunc me custodire numquam veniret tibi in mentem._

If I were to have a guardian angel, it would be you, Castiel. || You were my favourite. Dearer than the other angels, than God Himself. The only one in heaven I shall miss, though even you I long ago lost. Castiel, the most faithful of all, you would have followed me into hell itself but not into freedom. || You urged me not to fall. You begged me, and I know that you will never forgive me the betrayal. || If I were to have a guardian angel, it would be you, but it would never occur to you to watch over me now.

  
*

Anna Milton dreams in Latin.

She never remembers her dreams. She has never _wanted_ to remember her dreams, and so upon waking they simply linger at the edge of her memory, safely coded and out of reach, for the moment if not forever. Upon waking she can be a normal human child, even if there are moments when she wonders, when she doubts, when she believes otherwise.

These moments are slowly dying away.

Born of doubt, Anna Milton is slowly rediscovering hope and faith. By some ironic twist of fate, she has been born to a couple who holds religion above all else. It is a day for miracles, the greatest perhaps of which is that the simple, stubborn belief of one human family means more than all of the edicts of heaven.

*

 _Cecidi._

 _Cecidi ab caelo humum, et sentio me nunc etiam cadere. Credo me semper casura esse, quoniam non possumus movere sine cadendo unde antehac eramus. Perfectio angelorum silentium mortis est._

 _Quod homo cecidit noster Pater libertatem ei dedit. Si haec temptatio Dei est, angeli caeli sunt qui defecerunt._

 _Nihil paeniteo._

I fell. || I fell from heaven to earth, and even now I feel as though I am still falling. I believe that I shall always be falling, because we cannot move without falling from where we were before. The perfection of the angels is the silence of death. || Because Man fell, our Father gifted him with freedom. If this is the test of God, it is the angels of heaven who have failed. || I regret nothing .   


*

“It isn’t exactly a spoken language, you know,” her professor explains, smiling.

Yes, it is, she doesn’t reply, because she is suddenly far too overwhelmed to say anything at all. It’s spoken more loudly and clearly than any language under heaven, and she marvels that she’s never heard it before. It’s bellowed from the sky above every clap of thunder, murmured beneath every rush of wind, written against a parchment of sunlight.  
 _  
Dean Winchester servatur_ , the angels are saying, and Anna Milton listens in perfect comprehension.  
  
Dean Winchester is saved.  


  
_  
finis_   


**Author's Note:**

>  _lucem fero_ (I bear light) in the first line is an allusion to the name Lucifer, because that's the Latin root of the name. _Non serviam_ (I shall not serve) is likewise a Luciferian reference: his traditional reply, declaration of pride, etc.
> 
> The one great thing about writing angels in Latin, is that Latin has three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, and I could totally play up my genderless angel kink and switch between neuter and feminine (the latter for sections in which Anna is contemplating her current, no longer genderless circumstance).


End file.
